Kindergarten-age children need a lot of sleep.

They’re not getting it, in case you were wondering. Sleep-deprived children are no laughing matter. They’re cranky.

They often behave like the witch in the Wizard of Oz right after the water gets thrown on her (along with accompanying insults hurled).

They can’t learn. They won’t eat well.

It’s not pretty. Trust me.

How can you tell if a child isn’t getting enough sleep? According to one of the leading sleep researchers in the country, Dr. William Dement of Stanford, here are some things to ask:

Is your child hard to wake?

Does your child have trouble concentrating?

Does your child fall asleep spontaneously during the day?

Does your child sleep in on weekends?

Read his awesome book The Promise of Sleep to learn more about the amazing benefits of sleep for all of us.

Just because your child has trouble falling asleep does not mean your child isn’t tired. In fact, the reverse is often true. Over-tired children frequently find it difficult to go to sleep.

Trouble getting your little one to buy on the whole “sleep is crucial” thing? The Sleep for Kidswebsite created by the National Sleep Foundation is just for them!

Sleep helps learning.

We can’t learn if we don’t sleep, and it is backwards to say that we can’t give kids a rest time in kindergarten because they have too much to learn. If they don’t sleep, you might as well take all those worksheets and…well, I think you know what I’d say about worksheets in kindergarten.

I’m a teacher. I’m a school administrator. I get it, and I say the people who are creating the learning objectives for kindergarten have lost track of what we know about brain development in young children.

Young brains are sponges, yes, but we wet those sponges with play, not worksheets.

Naps increase retention. This has been demonstrated in studies with adultsand children.

Resting helps behavior.

Let those kiddos rest, and they’ll spend less time in time out. One study I think was particularly well done appears to show that staying awake too long makes it harder to control your negative emotions (think “tangry” – you’re tired and angry).

One of the study’s authors said, “Our results suggest that napping may be a beneficial intervention for individuals who may be required to remain awake for long periods of time by enhancing the ability to persevere through difficult or frustrating tasks.”

For a five-year-old, the school day is a long period of time, especially when you take into account how early some children get up.

When you hear that school age children no longer need naps, understand that to the traditional understanding, five-year-olds are preschool age children. School age is typically six.

Just like GT kids can get misdiagnosed with other co-existing conditions, a lack of sleep can lead to misdiagnosis as ADHD because it can lead to defiance and hyperactivity. Who doesn’t know what that sleepy punchiness feels like?

Going to the mat.

Not that long ago, I saw a school bus go by with literally a dozen kids asleep, their heads propped awkwardly against the rattling windows, and I literally began to cry.

Since when is exhausted children our educational imperative?

So if you are in a position of power in a kindergarten, fight for naps.

If you’re a parent, make the argument.

Anyone who says that there is too much learning to be done to allow a rest time is ignoring the facts to the detriment of children and their brains.

Here’s something that should not be news to anyone: play is the work of children, and force-feeding schoolishness in kindergarteners is counterproductive.

Some kids won’t nap, sure. They can listen quietly to music, take a break from the sensory overload of school, look at books or read, breathe, the possibilities are wide and restful.

I also wrote an article about sleep for the Mensa Bulletin, and you can read suggestions for getting young ones to sleep in that.

Sleep on.

Unless you’re in kindergarten. In that case, grab your graphing calculator and get working.

Comments

Your sentence that really got me was “Since when is exhausted children our educational imperative?” I too have seen WAY too many exhausted Kinder babies, as a Kindergarten Teacher. One of which (who also fell asleep on the bus), was “misplaced” and didn’t make it off the bus to day care, because the driver didn’t hear or see him!!! (A.K.A. Was asleep due to exhaustion.) He was left on that bus, turned off with no AC, for over an hour. Since when is this what our Kinder babies should feel like at the end of the day?! My question is, as an Kindergarten Teacher and advocate of naps coming back, how do I begin the process of fighting for it? Where do I begin in my district? Or even in our state? What do you suggest?

Thank you, Robbye, and I’d say that here are some beginning steps:
– Find out what the actual policy is from the district level. If it’s not conducive to the allowance of naps, begin with an email to the next level up (and then repeat) until the Superintendent, inviting them to read some of the literature. If that’s not successful, or at the same time…
– Contact your state representation and/or senator and encourage them to consider making it the law. Some states have laws about it, and so can our state (we live in the same state, it happens).
– Share this article!

I believe in taking a break at that age and allowing down time
However at age 5/6 I think that it is a huge waste of time to make children physically lay on a mat to try and nap. I say try because many students do not actually fall asleep but are forced to lay still quietly. I personally feel if you have a child who needs to nap set up a space that accommodates that child. I do not think it is fair to the child who does not need to sleep to have to lay on the ground. I send my child to school to be educated socially, emotionally and creatively not to sleep.

While I appreciate your opinion, the neuroscience research just doesn’t support it. Play and rest are crucial to a child’s social, emotional and cognitive development. So while lying down may not be what you send your child to school for, it would benefit him/her nonetheless. Tired children don’t perform as well in any domain. Lying still for awhile is not a punishment, but needed rest. There is no way that you can have a class where some children are lying down and others aren’t, as I think you recognize.

Agreed. I teach full day kindergarten. The expectation is not to nap but rest, read, listen to music. In the fall there’s always one or two who fall asleep. Rarely do the kids complain about rest time. I use it to pull kids who need 5- 10 mins 1-1 support, stage 1 RTI, do short assessments (all of which are fine 1-1 and there’s now tins in kdg).
Our afternoon is busy with math and specials like ar, science music etc. The kids need the down time!

I see you mentioned that GT kids are often misdiagnosed with other co-existing conditions. Can you expand on that further? I am a mom of a GT kid about to begin schooling and I just am trying to understand how to best prepare.

Hi Lisa:
I am so glad I find your article!
my son is turning 3 next month, and his is in pre-school full day programme for a week now, he was in 18-3 years class last term and his teacher decide he can go to preschool this term, I didn’t know they actually not provide nap time anymore, the baby class have got 2 hours morning nap every day, but now in preschool, they put 3 years up to 6 years together, with no nap time provided, only when the kid is too tired and wants to sleep, they have got an empty class for them to rest, but usually none of the kids will sleep in there because the class is right next to the playground, exciting jungle gym and sand filed etc. outside… no one will take a rest in the room even a very tired one,,,,,,
when I fetch him last week, he was tried and fall to sleep very early before 7:30, but I didn’t have got chance to play or seat with him before bedtime, he was very tired and easy to get him cry and screaming!
so I search for help but most article on internet says day time nap will be dropped between age of 3-4, and a daytime nap will affect the quality of bedtime sleep etc… but I still cannot convince myself to just leave it and let my son sleep less at this early age… I want to try to speak to the school principle, but I doubt she will do any changes about this, I think the only thing I can do is fetch my son early from school and let him sleep on the way back,,,, it will affect my working hour (I work from home), but i think it worth to do it right now, or I can change him back to baby class again,,, this sounds not work as he already older enough to deal with bigger kids and teaching progremme……

I am really miserable here, also my 2nd boy is due this September, so it will be difficult to keep quiet in the house at night, so how my 3 years old can get full sufficient sleep at night and keep up all day long….???

Hello Lisa! Thank you for your so much needed article and simple but yet efficient explanations. Yes, it is very important for children to nap, and we as adults well know it.

How would you advise preschool teachers to tackle this with children directly? Although most children sleep at preschool, not all of them fall asleep at the same time, keeping the rest of the class awake and thus causing stress for the other children, teacher and themselves also. What methods would you recommend in this situation? As you may well appreciate, they cannot be simply made to fall asleep or made to stay still. As a mother of a preeschooler I am worried that nap time may be worry time for some children that fall asleep later then others or that simply cannot fall asleep every day and need extra atention to facilitate relaxing time.

Sleep is a habit, and consistency is the key. Most preschool teachers are adept at facilitating naptime because I have yet to see anyone argue that preschoolers don’t need a naptime. I actually would disagree that preschoolers cannot learn to either fall asleep or lie quietly. This can be facilitated with dim lighting, weighted blankets, music, or guided meditation for kids. Most importantly, parents must make sure that the are being consistent about naps on weekends and holidays.

Great article Lisa! It saddens to read comments on discussion groups where people say children this age don’t need to rest. I work in a Steiner school and the K/1 class have a rest after lunch every day. They don’t all fall asleep but if they do we let them sleep. I think we really need to uphold the rights of children and adequate sleep is something that is so powerful in helping them develop and grow optimally……

Our school mandates 30 minutes of nap/rest time for Kindergarten. What would you suggest about kids who sleep longer? do you think it is okay to let them sleep on? A lot of my incoming Kindergarteners were in my preK class last year where we give the kids about 1hr 15 minutes of nap/ rest. I know a number who don’t sleep till after 15 minutes and would sleep through the entire 45 minutes remaining. Moving to Kindergarten it may not be different for them .

I’d go ahead and let them sleep. What they might miss is less detrimental than risking waking a child in deep sleep and getting a meltdown. There will need to be a limit, of course, as you wouldn’t want them sleeping for hours and interfering with nightly sleep. If you have a child who does sleep for very long periods, a discussion about nighttime sleep habits with parents is probably in order.

I found your article after doing some research on the subject. This is the first year that our children’s school has done away with what they call “rest time”. They did away with naps a while ago, but now they even took away the 20 or so minutes that they did have to recoup a bit from such a long day. Our daughter comes home the last few days of the week and is so completely exhausted that she is falling asleep before I even get dinner on the table at 5:30. Not to mention how cranky she is and this is even with her getting a minimum of 10 hours of sleep a night. We are through the 1st quarter in the school year and I was hoping she would be able to adjust, but I’m seeing no signs of it. I contacted the school board who then passed me to the superintendent and after 11 days I finally got a response and his response was that the other kids are “handling it” and that in our state it is not required for the kids to attend Kindergarten, so we could take her out of school if we wanted to. I was appalled by this response to say the least. Since then we have left a message for our State Commissioner of Education and are waiting for a response and I have also sent out a mass e-mail to all the kindergarten parents at the school and many parents feel the same. I am going to wait a response from the Commissioner of Education and see what our options are and get a petition going, so we can submit that. Any further suggestions to get our kids “rest time” back would be appreciated!!

It’s so crazy because they need time to rest, especially because they’re getting so much stimulation. What you’re doing is correct – gathering strength in numbers of other parents. You may wish to contact your state senators and congressperson as well, as they can actually change the law to make it mandatory to have a rest time.

I would build in a rest/nap time when she gets home from school of 20 – 30 minutes or so.

I really appreciate your response!!! We are plugging along with this and if we cannot get anywhere locally I will definitely go the route of contacting our senators and congressperson. I did not even think about that avenue, but will definitely use that if need be.

I have actually tried giving her a short nap when she gets home, because well, she just falls asleep anyway, but in the past when I allowed her that nap, she didn’t get to sleep at bedtime and was up later and then it makes for a rough day following that. We have put her to bed a little earlier and let her eat breakfast at school rather than waking up a little earlier to eat before getting on the bus, but even with these changes she is still exhausted by the end of the week.

When I was in full day kindergarten in 1990, there were no naps, and no one seemed to miss it. Today’s kindergarten students are older than in the past too, in the 5-6 age range rather than 4-5. Most children stop napping by 4 or so. Five and particularly six year olds should not need naps if they are getting enough sleep at night. Perhaps a child who needs a nap should wait another year before starting kindergarten.

I disagree. The research just doesn’t bear that out. Anecdotal evidence, while interesting, is not conclusive. I don’t agree that children who need sleep should be held back. That’s especially true of the gifted. I also don’t agree that kids are older in kinder now. Do you have stats on that?

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Welcome! I'm Lisa Van Gemert, the Gifted Guru. I'm an educator, an author, a speaker, and a mom of gifted kids. I share ideas & resources I think are worth your time. Thank you for visiting with me! Read More…

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